EXCLUSIVE: Eight contractors eye Kuwait gas sweetening facility

06 February 2018
Contract is expected to be worth around $300m

Eight international contractors are considering bidding on Kuwait’s planned gas sweetening facility in West Kuwait, according to industry sources.

The project is estimated to be worth $300m and the deadline for bids for the main contract is 1 April.

A pre-tender meeting for the project took place on 22 January.

Representatives from ten companies attended the meeting.

The attending companies were:

  • Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
  • Saipem (Italy)
  • SK E&C (South Korea)
  • Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)
  • SNC-Lavalin (Canada)
  • China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC)
  • Petrofac International (UK-based)
  • Spetco (local)
  • Entrepose Contracting (France)

Out of these ten companies eight attended a subsequent site visit.

“I think all of the companies that attended the site visit are relatively keen to bid on this project,” said one source.

Entrepose Contracting and SNC-Lavalin are the two companies that attended the meeting but did not attend the site visit.

A total of 29 companies are pre-qualified to bid for the contract.

The contract consists of two portions: the gas facility itself and a sulphur recovery unit (SRU).

Although the two portions are being tendered under a single contract the two portions use different project financing models.

The gas sweetening facility is being built using the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model, while the SRU is being built using the Build Own Operate (BOO) model.

According to the scope the facility will be built to deliver 120 million standard cubic feet a-day (MMSCFD) of sweet gas using from various sour gas streams from upstream processing units with a varied hydrogen sulphide concentration of 4 per cent (mole) and carbon dioxide of 10 per cent (mole).

The facility will be installed at Booster Station BS-171 West Kuwait and will built as an amine solvent based gas treating unit.

Amine gas treating, also known as amine scrubbing, refers to a group of processes that use aqueous solutions of various alkylamines (commonly referred to simply as amines) to remove the acid gases and other toxic contaminants from raw sour gas streams.

The facility will consist of two identical gas processing trains, each with a capacity of 60 million stand cubic feet a-day (SCFD).

The facility will be fed by raw sour gas that is contaminated with heavy hydrocarbons, suspended solids (in the form of black powder), salt water, compressor lube oils and pipe line treating chemicals.

This will be cooled to a lower temperature to remove hydrocarbon liquids and then passes through a suitable pre-treatment system.

The gas sweetening facility will be designed targeting zero flaring.

KOC has stipulated that the winner of the contract will be required to develop a gas dispersion flaring model based on simulation results, capacity and tum-down, using a quantitative reliability assessment.

The SRU will consist of two separate trains.

According to the scope released by KOC, the contactor will be required to provide tie-in facilities at the relevant locations in the facility to facilitate tie-in of the two SRUs trains.

They will also be responsible for the procurement, supply, installation, construction, testing, pre-commissioning, commissioning and performance testing of the SRU and associated piping.

Each train will have the capacity to handle 100 metric tons per day (TPD) of molten sulphur.

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